Legislative Document 1503: Increases Scope of Compulsory School Attendance Age

Legislative Document 1503: Increases Scope of Compulsory School Attendance Age

Sponsors:

Senator Justin Alfond

Summary:

Currently, Maine law requires that children between the ages of 7 and 16 attend school or comply with homeschool laws. If enacted, this bill would both lower the starting age of compulsory attendance to 6 and increase the ending age of compulsory attendance age to 17.

As originally written, LD 1503 would take away your freedom to decide whether school or some other path is best for your 17-year-old to follow. It would take away your freedom to decide if your 6-year-old is ready for mandatory education. And it would result in higher taxes as unprepared 6-year-olds and unwilling older students are forced to stay in schools.

Update: On March 30, the Maine Senate voted in favor of LD 1503 with the Espling amendment, as anticipated. This means the bill makes no changes to the ages of compulsory school attendance.

Thank you for your tremendous work in convincing lawmakers that parents, not the government, should decide the path for 5-year- olds and 17-year- olds to follow.

Thank you for your work on behalf of freedom in Maine!

HSLDA's Position:

Thank you for your awesome phone calls! They helped turn the tide on a bill that looked nearly unstoppable.

Encouraged by your many phone calls, yesterday the Maine House of Representatives added the Espling amendment to LD 1503. This took out all parts of the bill that would have pushed the starting age for compulsory school attendance down from 5 to 6 and the ending age up from 17 to 18. The remaining parts of the bill are not problematic.

No more phone calls are needed. Please consider sending a brief email to your representative thanking him or her for supporting the right of parents to choose what is best for their children and keeping the compulsory school age as is in LD 1503.

Representatives Eleanor Espling (New Gloucester) and Dana Dow (Waldoboro) have earned our special thanks for their leadership role on this important issue. Home Schoolers of Maine (HOME) once again demonstrated its effectiveness in protecting freedom in Maine.

LD 1503 has gone back to the Senate for further consideration. We will keep you informed, but we are cautiously optimistic that the Senate will leave the Espling amendment in place.